Authors Note: Sorry, I forgot to tell ya'll that this takes place in early season 5, but it's a little AU because Chuck still has the intersect. Morgan never had it.

"Is anyone here for Chuck Bartowski?" the doctor repeated after receiving no response from anyone in the waiting room. Casey stood.

"We're here for Bartowski." He said, gesturing to himself, Morgan, and Sarah. "How is he?"

"Please, sit down. There's a lot to discuss regarding Mr. Bartowski's condition." The tired looking doctor said. "My name is Doctor Jennings and I've been in charge of Mr. Bartow-" Sarah cut him off. "Chuck. Call him Chuck."

"Alright, as I was saying, I am in charge of Chuck's medical care here. I'm going to start with his minor medical concerns and work my way up. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. First, Chuck has a broken left arm. We've set it and it should heal without complication. He also has several broken fingers on his left hand. Unfortunately, these appear to have been deliberate breaks. , perhaps with a plyers." Sarah gasped and Casey grunted. Morgan stared on in shock. "Moving on, we found three broken ribs, none of which pierced a lung thankfully, and two cracked ribs. The rest are severely bruised, but as with his arm, they should heal. He is also malnourished and dehydrated so we're pushing fluids and we have him on a feeding tube. Now, we move onto our major concerns. I'll start with his head injury. It appears that chuck received several heavy blows to the head, giving him a very severe concussion. His brain is slightly swollen, but it's going down slowly, but surely. We're optimistic that there should be no long term complications." They each breathed out a sigh of relief. Suddenly Sarah had a thought.

"Doctor, when we found him, he was conscious briefly. He seemed to believe I was dead and became very upset when he saw me. Could this be a result of his concussion?" Jennings thought for a moment. "As with and head trauma, confusion can occur. Another possibility is the drugs running through his system. We found needle marks from an IV on his arm so we ran a blood test. The results came back to a very strange cocktail of drugs whose end result would be confusion and trouble telling what was real or not. We're hoping when he wakes up he'll be more coherent. Now, our two biggest concerns with Chuck are his infection as a result of the stab wound in his thigh, and the internal bleeding. The wound on his thigh is relatively minor, but it is now badly infected. His temperature is sitting at about 103.6 right now and climbing. We've cleaned and debrided the wound and inserted a drain, but right now all we can do is let the antibiotics work. As for the internal bleeding, it must have happened now long before you found him. It's still very worrisome, but definitely not as bad as it could have been. The blows to his abdomen cause a slight perforation of the spleen. We were able to fix it, but he did lose quite a bit of blood. He is receiving transfusions as we speak. In all, Chuck is not out of the woods by any means, but we'll get him there. He's in the ICU now. Usually, we don't allow visitors, but I get the feeling you three wouldn't leave anyway. As long as you don't disturb him, you may sit with him." With that, Jennings led the way to Chuck's glass cubicle. Sarah's fragile composure crumbled at the sight of her frail husband lying so still on the bed. He looked fragile and small. He had many tubes attached to him, one of which Sarah recognized as a respirator. God, he can't even breathe for himself Sarah thought. Taking the seat next his right side, she grabbed a hold of his this hand. Jennings came up behind her and handed her a small bag. Inside was Chuck's wedding band. "I'm not sure how he held onto this, but we had to remove it in order to set his fingers." Sarah thanked him and continued to stoke Chuck's hand with her thumb. She had missed that hand so much. Morgan was seated opposite of her on Chuck's left side. He sat there quietly without making a move to touch him, as though afraid he might hurt him more. Casey stood at the end of chuck's bed, as though guarding the young man. Gone was his tough, indifferent facial expression. Instead, the NSA agent looked close to tears. Who would do this? They still had no idea who the people who took Chuck were. The team who raided the warehouse only came up with one man, who had surprisingly given himself up without a fight, almost as if he wanted to be caught all along. Casey turned all this information over in his head. Based on his injuries, it looked like they wanted something from Chuck. That, of course, was no surprise being that he was the intersect. Casey felt a strong surge of bittersweet pride as he realized that Chuck must not have talked, or else the torture would have stopped.

They stayed in their position for three hours. A nurse had given Sarah a bowl of water and a washcloth so she could do something to control Chuck's rising fever. Morgan had gone to get them all more coffee and Casey was in the hallway asking for any information on who the people who hurt Chuck were. Sarah was all alone with Chuck. As she gently wiped his face, careful of his many bruises, Sarah was suddenly startled by alarms going off at his bedside. Within seconds, nurses were gently pushing her aside so they could work on Chuck. "What's happening? What's wrong?!" Sarah pleaded with the nurses for any sort of information on Chuck. Dr. Jennings, who she hadn't even seen come in spoke up. "He's fighting the tube, but it was just a precaution anyway. Lindsay, go ahead remove it. Someone get a bath basin full of ice ready. He's fever's at 106 now. We need to induce hypothermia." Sarah's stomach lurched. She knew how bad a fever like this was. Hell, she'd lived through it not too long ago. She remembered Chuck being at her side, and she resolved to do the same for him. Chuck was now being wheeled away with Sarah at his side and Morgan and Casey following closely.

The moment the ice cubes were poured over Chuck's body, his fever glazed eyes flew open in panic. He glanced wildly around, trying to find something familiar. Suddenly his eyes locked onto Sarah, Casey, and Morgan. Oh God, he thought. I really must be dying if they're here. He still remembered all too clearly seeing the video of them being blown to bits in Castle. The Buy More had blown up yet again, but this time, everyone had been inside. They had made him watch the news so he could see the truth of their words. The reporter said the bodies were burned beyond recognition and needed dental records to be identified. Among the dead, the report mentioned Sarah Walker, John Casey, Morgan Grimes, Michael "Big Mike" Tucker, Lester Patel, and Jeffrey Barnes. If Chuck had been there, he could have disabled the bomb using the intersect, they told him. He could have saved them. But he didn't. He was so consumed with grief that he almost welcomed his daily beatings. They helped him to at least feel something. Had he not been overwhelmed by loss and guilt, he might have found it strange that they never asked him one question. Day after day they beat him, but not quite enough to kill him. In fact, they refused to let him die. When Chuck no longer accepted the food and water provided, they inserted an IV in his arm and gave him fluids and nutrition. Not enough to gain any strength, but enough to keep him just barely alive. Not that he wanted to be. Without Sarah or the others, Chuck had no purpose in life. He tried to give up, but they wouldn't let him. He looked around again. What the hell? Am I in a hospital? How in the world did I get here? Suddenly, he flinched when he felt a warm, soft hand close around his own. It was Sarah's. Strange how it felt so real. How was this even possible? She was dead! they all were.

"S-s-sarah?" He asked, hardly daring to believe she was actually here.

"Chuck! Chuck, I'm here. It's ok, you're safe." Sarah was beyond relieved to see Chuck's eyes open.

"If 'm dead, w-why is it so cold?" he stuttered out around his chattering teeth.

"Sweetie, you're not dead. You're in the hospital and you're very sick, but you'll get better, ok?"

"Not dead yet? Soon then. G-guys, c-can't do this any longer. I'll be with you. In a minute." His sentences where short and halting. Fear gripped Sarah's heart once more. He still thought she was dead. He thought they all were. And he was giving up. Not about to let that happen, Sarah cupped his face in her palms once more.

"Chuck! Look at me. I'm real. Feel my hands?" she gave his face a small shake "I'm real. I'm not dead. Casey and Morgan are real too. We're all very worried about you. Look, whatever they told you, whatever you believe happened to us, it's not true. They lied. Chuck, I really need you to fight! Please, for me!" she pleaded desperately.

"'Kay, babe. Can't let you down." and with that his eyes slid shut. Before Sarah had a chance to panic, Jennings spoke.

"He's just unconscious. Looks like the ice bath's working. His fever's back to a relatively safe range. You did good, Agent Walker. Just keep him calm and he'll come around eventually. We need another half hour to get him settled back in his room, and then you'll be allowed back to see him." With that, a nurse led them back to the waiting room where they sat once again in the incredibly hard chairs. Just as they were settling in to wait, the doors burst open at the end of the hall. Agent Jason Manning walked quickly towards them. Manning had just returned from the warehouse where he led the raid. He was very confused. None of what they'd found there made any sense. He approached Casey.

"Colonel Casey, sir. We found something you may need to see. My team and I couldn't make sense of it, but maybe you can." Manning said as he pulled out his laptop. Inserting a flash drive into the port, he selected a video file and hit play.

Longer chapter this time. let me know your thoughts! BTW this is my first fanfic EVER so don't be harsh!